Volunteers forego shopping to fill bags with 100,000 meals

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- As Black Friday shoppers loaded up their trunks, hundreds of volunteers this weekend are packing 100,000 meals to fight worldwide hunger.

"It doesn't feel like work," Allison Moreau, one of the volunteers told ABC11. "It's just an honor to be able to serve people."

Moreau and her family said they made the decision a few weeks ago to take a shift at the Rise Against Hunger warehouse in northeast Raleigh. Their eagerness to contribute was reinforced on Thursday around the dinner table.

"In the pandemic, we haven't had my whole family together for a couple years, so I was really grateful for that," Moreau explained. "Realizing people don't have that around the world - that really struck me."

The meals are nonperishable; they consist of rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and vitamins and need only boiling water to cook. That composition as key as the meals are sent to countries such as Haiti, Nicaragua and also in communities in African nations that are ravaged by hunger and political strife.

"The difference is opportunity," Darren Stover, a manager at Rise Against Hunger, told ABC11. "They don't have economic systems or crisis responses to political crisis or natural disasters. There are all kinds of things that have brought them to a point of being acutely hungry."

All of the volunteer positions are filled for this weekend's event, but those interested in future opportunities and supporting the organization can visit www.riseagainsthunger.org